House working group prepares border plan

Texas Republican Kay Granger, who heads a special House working group on the border crisis, signaled Tuesday that she will push to beef security and speed deportations in a report that is expected to shape the congressional response to the record wave of immigrant children.

After returning a weekend congressional trip to Guatemala and Honduras, Granger told reporters that her group will likely endorse a plan to “tweak” a 2008 law that gives special immigration status to undocumented children from Central America.

The group, appointed by House Speaker John Boehner, also is expected to give some backing to Gov. Rick Perry’s call for National Guard troops at the border. Their report is expected to be released Wednesday.

Under the current law to combat sex traffickers, undocumented children from nations that do not border the Unites States are afforded immigration hearings that can languish for years.

A bill rolled out Tuesday by a pair of fellow Texans – Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat – would treat all unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border equally and expedite the legal process for seek humanitarian relief.

In her comments, Granger appeared to support the revisions, which many Republicans have made a condition of approving President Obama’s emergency funding request for the border.

Granger, of Fort Worth, said leaders she met in Guatemala and Honduras want the children back.

“This is not an immigration problem, this is a crisis,” she said in a separate appearance on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday. “What we should be dealing with is this crisis and not blaming either Congress or these countries.”

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and many Democrats have cautioned against weakening protections that were put in place to keep immigrant children from harm, but Republicans say the special immigration process for Central American children has served as an enticement for the surge of 57,000 unaccompanied children since last October.

Although the White House and some Democrats also have called for changes in the law, it remains to be seen whether Congress will pass the president’s $3.7 billion funding request in full.

“We’re trying to scrub through that and figure out what’s absolutely necessary,” Cornyn said.